No shirt, No shoes...

Am I the only person on the planet that wears shoes when I leave the house? I can't be. If I were, there would be way more incidents of athletes foot and people without feet and other horrible things. Right?

2 teenage girls walked into my store the other day. Being the "customer service oriented" person that I am, I approached them and asked if there was anything I could help them with.

As I was doing so, I happened to glance down. Neither of them were wearing shoes.

"Um,. like we were just wondering if you could tell us about bleach?" Blink. Blink.

"Sure, I can tell you about bleach, as I walk you out of the store, because I am sorry girls but I can't have you in the store without shoes on."

"Oh really? Oh, ok."

I walked them out. I explained bleach as I was doing so. See. I am nice.

The very next day a woman comes in with her six children. Yes, six. She asked me to help her pick out some hair. So I did. Her children were running up and down the aisles and when one of her devil spawn, er, I mean, beautiful children ran directly into me, I noticed he was not wearing shoes.

No.

Wait, how do I handle this the correct way?

"Ma'am, I am sorry, I am going to have to ask you to either put shoes on him or take him out of the store. We can't have him running around without shoes as we sell chemicals in this store that could potentially hurt his skin., if for some reason something had spilled or something."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really."

She looked at me.

I looked at her.

She looked at the child.

"Do you have a cart?"

" I do have a cart. I will get you one."

"Will it be okay if I put him in the cart?"

"Ma'am, as long as he is not running through the store barefoot I will be happy, I just don't want him to get hurt."

I proceeded to get her a cart and she proceeded to put her child in it. I spent the next hour with her discussing $12.00 hair pieces and all I could think about the entire time was; how can you afford this fake hair when you can not obviously afford shoes for your child?

Forgive me gentle reader, I do not mean to judge maliciously, but really? I have no children, so maybe I am not the best person to dole out advice on how to take care of your children. However, I feel like it may be slightly important to at least provide your children with the essentials. Like shoes. In public. Just saying.